Fire Department Company Officer (3rd Edition)



Fire Department Company Officer (3rd Edition)

Chapter 19 - Incident Scene Management

Test Review

▪ Objectives of incident scene management are life safety, incident stabilization, and property conservation.

▪ An important item related to life safety at an incident is personnel accountability.

▪ Protecting a roadway scene from oncoming traffic is one of the most important ways of protecting lives of emergency responders.

▪ Incident stabilization allows responders to work in an area free of interference from non-emergency personnel.

▪ Scene control can help to confine the problem to a smaller area.

▪ The phases of scene management are scene assessment and scene control.

▪ Two of the most important concerns in scene assessment are nature and size of the incident.

▪ Areas downhill/downwind of a hazardous material release may have to be evacuated.

▪ Fundamentals of scene management include:  traffic, perimeter, crowd, and witness control, and occupant services and evacuation.

▪ Law enforcement personnel usually handle traffic control.

▪ Protective clothing worn on roadway incidents should be brightly colored (fluorescent orange, canary yellow) and/or have reflective striping.

▪ Emergency vehicles parked out of the roadway should turn off their emergency lights and headlights.

▪ Proper placement of emergency vehicles at non-fire scenes depends on a number of variables, however, placement is generally opposite that of fire scenes.

▪ Emergency vehicles should be parked uphill/upwind of incidents when possible.

▪ Heavy vehicles should be kept away from open trenches (vibration).

▪ Perimeter control facilitates personnel accountability.

▪ The most common method of organizing an emergency scene is to establish operating zones (hot, warm, cold).

▪ The restricted (hot) zone is an area where mitigating the problem will take place.

▪ The limited access (warm) zone is an area immediately outside the hot zone used for personnel who directly support those working in the hot zone.

▪ The support (cold) zone is an area immediately surrounding the warm zone which may include the command post, PIO, staging areas, and backup personnel.

▪ The outer boundary of the cold zone is the crowd control line.

▪ It is preferable for law enforcement to perform crowd control.

▪ Persons who refuse treatment/transport should be asked to sign a release of liability form.

▪ Concerns for controlling individual involved with a scene include:  keep them from wandering the scene, keep uninjured from getting injured, provide accountability, obtain information, and separate witnesses.

▪ Relatives and friends of victims should be gently but firmly restrained from getting to close to the incident and they should be kept some distance from the actual incident, but inside the cordoned area.

▪ Witnesses should be separated from those involved in the incident AND from each other.

▪ Witnesses should be collected in the "cold" zone while waiting with a firefighter or other responsible person assigned to each witness.

▪ Leading questions tend to be closed-end questions (requiring only a "yes" or "no" answer).

▪ Occupant services involves firefighters seeing beyond the obvious physical impact of the incident and being sensitive to the mental and emotional impact of the witnesses.

▪ If those at a scene witnesses a death or serious injury, a CISD team may be called to the scene to deal with witnesses and victims.

▪ Pre-incident planning is an important element in successful large-scale evacuations.

▪ Fire departments should develop contingency plans for small-, medium-, and large-scale evacuations.

▪ During an evacuations, persons who do not comply may be placed in protective custody (arrested) and be forced to leave.

▪ Large-scale evacuations may require the use of churches, schools, auditoriums, municipal buildings, or hotels/motels.

▪ The evacuation needs of non-ambulatory persons must be anticipated during pre-incident planning.

▪ Company level personnel may be responsible for setting up a helicopter landing zone (LZ).

▪ The theory of sheltering, also called safe haven, is that there is too little time to conduct a full scale evacuation.

▪ Due to the American Disabilities Act (ADA), many new buildings now have areas of rescue assistance (used for sheltering in place).

▪ Areas of rescue assistance in buildings have minimum structural requirements and must have a means of communication.

▪ An example of sheltering in place is persons staying inside structures while a wildland fire passes.

▪ During a HazMat release, occupants may be better off staying inside until the vapor/gas cloud dissipates, however, they should be asked to shut down HVAC systems and close all windows, doors, and vents.

▪ The final period of incident scene control extends through termination of the incident and release of the scene.

▪ If an incident is large enough to require a demobilization unit, that unit will coordinate the recovery of loaned items such as radios, and document lost/damaged equipment/apparatus.

▪ The cost of equipment "abandoned" at a hazardous scene is recovered from the owner of the property, insurance, or government assistance.

▪ If a scene is still to hazardous after release of a scene, the owner may be required to post a security guard, erect a security fence, or both.

▪ Firefighters who had to deal with extremely gruesome and horrific incidents should be required to go through CISD and should not be optional.

▪ The CISD process should start before personnel enter a scene (prebriefing).

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